Monday, 9 June 2014

I recently moved to Berlin, and while
escaping to a foreign land may sound like a stressful process, for me
the logistics have been fairly simple.

My friend had arranged the flights and
accommodation for the first part of our trip, and once we arrived he
took responsibility for getting us around and dealing with the local
people (his German is very good, you see). Everybody speaks English in Berlin, as it happens, so I could have gotten by.
All the same, I was nestled comfortably under his wing.

It wasn't long before I began looking for work as an English language teacher, and I planned to go out alone to visit employers in person with my CVs. I wrote the address and contact information of every language
school I could find, and used Google Maps to plot the point of each
one. I then took a snapshot of the routes between them and uploaded
it to my phone.

I would be able to see the location and
street name of every destination I was going to visit, along with the fastest
route to them. I estimated the whole journey would take roughly two and
a half hours. I would wake up early. I was totally prepared...

It was two o'clock by time I escaped
my apartment. Using an ingenious pulley system, I was able to slide
beneath the shutter covering our front door without the use of our
lone front door key, which had been taken by my room-mate. (Our
apartment was once a bakery, in case you were wondering.)

A minor hiccough, I thought, but if I
stick to the schedule I'd still have more than enough time to
complete my rounds.

First stop, the questionably named
“Copy Con” to print my CVs. According to Google Maps' traffic
indicators the trip should have taken a mere seven minutes had I left on
the night I researched it.

It took 90 minutes. What a difference a
day makes.

I produced ten washed-out
CVs. The gentleman at the counter told me the cost of my printing in
English (which he guessed was my mother tongue, based on all the English I was speaking). His friend laughed at him. The cashier
looked at me and said “'one euro fifty,' that's how you say it in
English, right?”

I said “perfecto”. This wasn't
English. Maybe I was jealous that he could speak a foreign language and I wanted
to throw him a curve ball? Maybe I thought I was speaking German?

Maybe it was 4pm and I wanted to do a
little bit of a cry somewhere?

I carried on. Reaching my next
destination took no time at all, I was there within fifteen minutes.
Now we're cooking!

However, instead of gazing up at the
grandieur... the spectacle... of ExploreEnglish's cutting edge
language building... I was in fact looking at a man selling nuts from
a cart.

No problem, I'll just give them a quick
call and make sure I have the right address.

They had no address. ExploreEnglish
was one guy, giving English lessons, from his apartment, in
Düsseldorf.

I felt a sincere temptation to become
mildly frustrated and dare I say, disappointed by my experiences...

I had spent all of my money on flights
and accommodation and food. I had only one friend in Berlin. I was
living in an apartment that only received WiFi in two rooms, one
which my friend had won in a coin toss when we got the place, and the
other (which I am typing this in right now) is a hallway. I had to
re-watch several episodes of MacGyver just to let myself out of the
front door.

I was sleeping on a mattress in a
dining room.

I was cold every night.

Our apartment had no spoons.

But, somehow, I wasn't disappointed. Or
frustrated. I wasn't angry or upset.

I was happy. I was almost blissfully
happy.

I had been stressed, I was exhausted
and sweating. I had been uncomfortable and embarrassed talking to
blank faces in broken German, asking why they could only print in
Schwarz und Weiss.

But it was invigorating. I learned more
vocabulary on this one day than any other - that's the honest truth.
I learned bus routes and where I could buy tickets. I learned how to
ask for food to take away. I learned to make sure the job I wanted
definitely was available and definitely wasn't in Düsseldorf. I
learned a whole bunch of stuff that I never would have learned if I
hadn't have braved it alone.

I didn't hand out any CVs. I didn't
visit eight language schools. I visited one old man, struggling to
stay conscious while selling salted almonds in the sun. But after this embarrassing mistake,
where I found myself on Berlin's Gaza Strip dressed like a lawyer, I
called the other offices which I had planned to visit - something I
should have done hours previously. None of my prospective employers were willing to see
me on that day. However, a few were interested in me... they said I
should maybe stop by next week... have a chat.

Even if I screw it up again next time.
Even if I lose my way and feel embarrassed. Even if, even if, even
if...

I discovered more in one rough, lonely,
lost day, than two weeks in my bubble. I can live with screwing up
again.

You will always remain in the shallow
end of the pool if your feet never leave the ground. The sooner you
sink - the sooner you'll swim.

Saturday, 29 March 2014

Even at my lowest, I can usually convince myself of how important difficult life experiences are. How that it is only through my struggles that I can come to understand my fortunate existence, and how they deepen my subsequent happiness.

On this occasion, the clouds stretch far too wide, and the sunlight is far too faint for my hopeful eyes to see a silver lining.

I recently found out about something that I wish I hadn't.

Now I'm going to tell you what it is...

The Asian Black Bear - also known as the Moon Bear after the milky, crest-shaped tuft of fur on its chest - is a species of bear native to eastern Asia. Moon bears are tree climbers, living in hilly or mountainous regions and are capable of balancing on two feet, like us.

Here is a picture of a moon bear:

Unfortunately for moon bears, they naturally produce a type of stomach bile that is very valuable in Asia, most commonly used in Chinese medicines. There are dozens of synthetic and herbal alternatives to bear bile (many cheaper and more effective), nonetheless it is a highly prized commodity and sourced in a number of areas across China and Vietnam. The practice is known as bile farming.

1. Latex catheterA narrow rubber pipe is embedded under the skin, and surgically attached to the gall bladder. The farmer then extracts the bile through the pipe which exits the skin at the top of the bear's thigh.

These "old-fashioned" latex catheters were largely phased-out in the mid-80s, as the catheter became easily clogged and it was therefore not an effective extraction method. Subsequent modification to this technique saw the introduction of the metal jacket.2. Metal jacketA rubber pipe is connected to a fluid bag inside a metal box, which is attached to a metal ‘jacket’ tightly holding the box in place under the bear's abdomen. The bile drained through the rubber pipe is emptied every two weeks by the farmer.

In addition to even greater levels of discomfort and pain, the metal jackets – which weigh over 10 kilos – also cause massive hair loss and painful irritation over the bears' bodies, as they are never removed. Designed to restrain the bears,sharp metal spikes poke into the bears’ necks to stop them bending their heads, and straps and strips of metal restrict their limb movements.

Metal pins, hooks, and any and all makeshift devices are crudely inserted directly into the gall bladder to hold the catheter in place. This is almost always done by unqualified people in conditions ripe for infection.3. Metal catheterVarying in length from 5 to 7.5 inches, a catheter is surgically implanted into the bears' gall bladder, allowing the farmers to milk the bears daily. During milking, the bears are enticed to lie flat on the bottom of the cage in order to feed from a low tray, thereby allowing the farmer easy access to the bear's abdomen and catheter.

Often, a metal "crush" (a metal grille) is lowered on top of the bears to force them to remain flat until the farmer has finished the procedure. In many cases, the farmers have never bothered to raise the crush bar, and Animals Asia has rescued many bears in cages with crushes rusted permanently into the lowered position, pinning the bears flat to the bottom of the cage for what is, evidently, many years.4. “Free-dripping" techniqueIn recent years, Chinese bear farmers have introduced a new, so-called humane, "free-dripping" method of bile extraction. This method uses no catheter, but sees a permanent hole, or fistula, carved into the bear's abdomen and gall bladder, from which bile drips freely out.

During this type of bile extraction, the bears are tempted by food or honey water to lie on the bottom of the cage, while the farmer forces an insanitary tube into the gall bladder; this breaks the membrane that has grown over the hole, and allows bile to flow directly into a bowl beneath.

The damage caused by bile leaking back into the abdomen, together with infection from the permanently open hole is as bad, if not worse, than the older style methods and subsequently there is still a high mortality rate on the farms.5. "Fake-free dripping" techniqueIn 2005, Animals Asia discovered a new technique of bile extraction being tested out on the bears - "fake free-dripping". Rather than a fistula, or ‘hole’, in the abdomen, the farmers now insert a permanent, perspex catheter into the fistula, which is almost impossible to see unless the abdomen is shaved and examined close-up. This new technique is against China's current regulations on bear farming.

Due to all the various procedures they are subjected to, the farmed bears’ livers and gallbladders become severely diseased, and the bile collected contaminated with pus, blood, urine and faeces.VietnamBears in Vietnam are subjected to a range of procedures. All are caged, but unlike bears on China’s farms which are ‘tapped’ for the bile, in Vietnam bears undergo crude surgery to remove bile from their gall bladders every few months, leaving infected wounds, which often lead to death after three or four such operations.

Today, the bears usually have their gall bladders punctured with long needles, which then "siphon" off the bile via a pump into a bottle. In this method, the bears are sedated - usually with ketamine - restrained with ropes, and have their abdomens jabbed repeatedly with four-inch needles until the gallbladder is located. Continuous puncturing of the gall bladder often leads to bile leakage, and a slow and painful death from peritonitis.

Thus the typical moon bear life sees them confined to a coffin while their stomachs slowly bleed and infest, or are repeatedly stabbed (often both). Most farmed bears are starved, dehydrated, and suffer from multiple fatal diseases and malignant tumours. Their heads swell. Their limbs deteriorate. Their mental state becomes fractured from their inability to move, their aching open wounds, and their loss of a natural environment and family. They chew their paws in pain and distress. (If their paws even remain - many bears lose limbs when they are originally snared). When a moon bear is no longer useful for bile extraction, it is either left to die, or slaughtered for its paws and gallbladder.

Some bears are imprisoned in cages as cubs and never released.

They cry, naturally.

Before I continue, I would like to take a brief, but ultimately necessary detour to review the conditions of battery hens:[This has been edited for length from Wesleyan Animal Rights Movement]

Battery hens are kept in windowless sheds, cramped in long rows of stacked cages containing an area less than half the size of a sheet of A4 paper. They have a wingspan of nearly 3 sheets of A4. Battery cages have sloping wire floors that prevent a hen from sitting, sometimes causing their feet to grow around the bars leaving them immobile and starving to death. They also have wire walls in which hens often get their head stuck, leading to the same fate.

Male chicks, who are of no value to the egg industry, are immediately killed. They are either tossed into garbage bags, left to suffocate or to be crushed, or are macerated in high-speed grinders. For the female chicks, after birth they are kept in out buildings for about 20 weeks until they enter their cage where they remain, without exception, until they are a year old when they are killed. They are often kept in the dark except at feeding times.

Battery hens are housed in flocks up to 1,000 times their natural size, and are unable to establish a social hierarchy normal to free flocks. The size and nature of the cages prevents hens from spreading or stretching their wings. They are prohibited the basic natural instincts of perching, scratching, roosting, dust-bathing, and nesting quietly. They are thus caused to become aggressive and attack other hens.

To reduce cannibalism among frustrated hens, a blade or laser is used to remove up to two-thirds of their beak. Some hens die from shock; others may feel lifelong pain or suffer from a permanent reduction in feeding. Evidence suggests phantom limb pain, and tumours form in the damaged tissue of the amputated beak stump.

I am so utterly incapable of effectively conveying the degree to which these practices upset me. Animals are starved, slaughtered, tortured, suffocated, crushed, dismembered, and castrated because they can produce a profit. Because their skin looks nice. Because they taste good.

How curious it is that the word humane, to be human, is used to describe kind acts, when human beings are the only species capable of such magnificent cruelty.

What you do with this knowledge is up to you. Should bile farming ever come to a close, the moon bears will not realise that we have saved them; we will never receive thanks. One day, something somewhere will cease being tortured. And that's about all.

Despite my belief that this disturbing issue is impossible to ignore, the fact that the practice even exists tells me that I'm wrong - I already know most people reading won't give it a second thought.

If nothing else, though, I'd like you to tell a friend about it. Just tell another person about bile farming. I think somebody might like to know.

One last thought.

Battery hens are kept in their torturous conditions for an average of 42 weeks.